Re-entering the Void with the Best Episode of ‘True Detective’
The surreal HBO series’ first-season midpoint — “Who Goes There?” — careens into epically cinematic chaos.
The surreal HBO series’ first-season midpoint — “Who Goes There?” — careens into epically cinematic chaos.
On the seventh story of a Japanese tower block, an uncomfortable negotiation is underway. Behind a check-in desk, a hand extends through a heavy felt curtain and feels around for a credit card on the counter. Finding nothing, it quickly withdraws, and after a hidden, whispered kerfuffle, a receptionist emerges awkwardly into the windowless lobby….
It’s hard to think of a more fitting title for Chinese filmmaker Song Fang’s sophomore feature than The Calming. A spiritual sister to Chantal Akerman’s classic portrait of female solitude, Les Rendez-vous d’Anna, The Calming follows a recently single woman filmmaker as she travels around China, Hong Kong, and Japan, showing her work and stopping…
This story is excerpted and adapted from Brandy Schillace’s Mr. Humble and Dr. Butcher: A Monkey’s Head, the Pope’s Neuroscientist, and the Quest to Transplant the Soul, published in March 2021 by Simon & Schuster. A grainy black-and-white film shuddered across television screens in the last days of May 1958. A man in a long…
The current asking price for a Ruby in Paradise DVD on Amazon sits well over $1,000. Its director, Floridian filmmaker Victor Nunez, has three copies sitting on his shelf – three times as many as the Internet may lead you to believe even exist. Despite its accolades (a glowing Roger Ebert review and a Grand Jury Prize win…
“What does the word ‘grief’ mean?” MTV Studios has revealed the official trailer for a documentary titled Beautiful Something Left Behind, an acclaimed film that premiered at a few documentary film festivals last year. It’s wonderful. At Good Grief groups, children meet to understand the passing of a parent or a sibling through play, giving…
Any film would kill to have a cast like “The War with Grandpa” boasts. Robert De Niro. Uma Thurman. Christopher Walken. Comic scene stealer Rob Riggle. Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonThe film itself doesn’t tax any of the above. It’s a frothy, paint-by-numbers comedy that cant even commit to its central…